'Titanic' Replica Ship Seeking Fans for Cruise

An Australian billionaire is building a replica of the Titanic in a Chinese shipyard, and he's hoping to get a boatload of fans on board for the experience.

Australian rich person Clive Palmer is working with Blue Star Line and a Finnish naval architecture firm to build the Titanic II, a replica of the ill-fated ship that sank in 1912 and became fodder for James Cameron's epic film, 'Titanic.' Palmer is having the ship built in a Chinese shipyard with "updated safety measures," according to THR.

This past weekend, Blue Star Line held a gala dinner in Macau, with an 11-course meal replicating the meal served the night the Titanic sank. 600 guests were in attendance, with Palmer providing an intro via video conference, answering the most important question with another question: "Why build the Titanic? Why go to the moon?" Yeah, that doesn't really answer anything. Palmer went on to nod to his guests in Macau by adding, "Why did Hong Kong and Macau stand up and become part of China? Because they could. And they can. And we can build the Titanic." Just because you can do something, does that mean you should? When you have money, that answer is probably always yes.

Some 40,000 people have already expressed interest in boarding the Titanic II, with 35% of those people hailing from China, where 'Titanic' is the third highest-grossing movie of all time.

So let's see -- they want to replicate the Titanic, fill it with passengers, and set sail across the ocean to recreate one of history's most notorious tragedies, minus the tragedy part. And this is announced the same week a Carnival cruise ship was stranded out in the ocean and covered in human waste -- because cruising seems so sensible right now.

Little else is known about the plans for Titanic II, but we assume passengers will fight over who gets to sleep on a door, drink alcohol from a booze luge carved to replicate an iceberg, and participate in a Jack and Rose costume contest -- winner gets the Heart of the Ocean (replica because everything is a replica).

We can't wait for Clive Palmer's plans to replicate the Na'vi planet from 'Avatar'... in 3D.